Le Polaris en Nightmare
Haughbui Jarl *Jarl's new ability here is a spell called "Mjolnir's Echo." It's a 3 or 4 second cast during which he doesn't move. Upon completion of the cast, he knocks the tank down for a 2-ish second Impair, wipes all aggro FROM THE TANK ONLY, and proceeds to pinball around the party beating them to death. Completion of the cast usually results in him chain-casting Charged Hack, guaranteeing whatever non-tank folks he hits die. This MUST be interrupted - a successful cast is generally a wipe. If, for some reason, he gets it off, his chain-cast state can be ended by impairing any of his further casts, reverting him back to normal. *Jarl occasionally casts Charged Hack. It's a 3 or 4 second cast during which he DOES move and follows the tank. This is the first "proximity-interrupt" cast you'll likely encounter. If the tank uses Active Dodge or an escape ability to sufficiently outrange the ability when it's about 75% complete, Jarl gives up and stops casting it. Too early, he'll follow and hit you, too late and you'll miss the prox check and eat the hit no matter how far away you are. It has a base damage of about 5000 damage. However, it frequently penetrates, and can pene/crit for upwards of 9000 damage. Try to stun/dodge it if you can, but if not, a defensive cooldown will suffice. This is the only substantial damage the tank is going to take. *Jarl occasionally casts Deep Blast, which displays some black funk in a large portion of the arena for a couple seconds before detonating it. This detonates for 3000-4000 damage or so. The water deals 472 damage/tick or so, so feel free to jump in the water if it's the only escape route available. *The tank will likely be hopping/dodging/surging from island to island for this fight, so be prepared for some movement. Melee DPS will have a bit of a tricky time, but it's not too bad. Blarbane Sorceress *Sorceress doesn't seem to have anything new. Total pushover. *Tanks should stun Deathsquall whenever she tries to cast it, and be ready to pick up the occasional pairs of adds that come in to cuddle. *DPS should be prepared to purge Tide Wall when she casts it. Tide Wall IS stunnable, though, so if the tank has two stuns this may not be necessary. *If she gets off a Deathsquall, move out of it (probably the other side of the trailer). Varangian *Varangian is the first real challenge you'll encounter in Polaris. He's substantially harder than he was in Normal and Elite. *Varangian's new spell, like the Jarl, is Mjolnir's Echo. Also like the Jarl, it's almost a guaranteed wipe if he gets it off, so interrupt the shit out of it. *V also uses Charged Hack, so be prepared to kick/dodge/surge it; he's more reliable at landing these for 7000-9500 damage than Jarl was, while simultaneously giving you more room to GTFO from it. *V can summon as many as 7(?) adds at once when he submerges, so be ready with plenty of AOE threat and AOE damage when he submerges; knocking them down is secondary to just keeping them off the healer. *When V freshly emerges from the water, he does so completely devoid of threat. Don't DPS him until the tank has had time to establish threat. This could actually be a fair amount of time, because the tank has to get out of range of both Deep Blast and Charged Hack; keep an eye on what the boss is casting and DPS appropriately. *During the transition to Phase 2, you have as much time as you desire to kill the 6 adds he sends your way. Don't rush to him, take the adds out first. *The transition to Phase 2 is the hardest part of the fight. Tank should run in in the water and be prepared to interrupt Mjolnir's Echo (he usually casts it shortly after becoming targetable), after which they'll need to drag him to one of the two tips of the "C" the trailers form in the water. *The boss does not cleave, so the healer may be able to heal the party through electricity rather than trying to dodge it. *V still uses Mjolnir's Echo and Charged Hack in Phase 2 occasionally, but not as often and rarely one after the other. One stun should suffice for the fight. *You can dodge Charged Hack during Phase 2 by simply jumping into the water on the opposite end of the trailer from where V is. He takes a while to path all the way around to you, which should be enough time to proximity-interrupt the attack. Haughbui Mother *SOMEONE NEEDS TO BRING AN AOE PURGE. When Mother splits, the three witchie-thing monsters she creates all spawn with a 50% evasion buff. This, combined with their staggering amount of combined firepower, can potentially wipe the party if it's not purged off. Bomb the purge as soon as they appear to have the best chance of purging all three. *Landing the AOE purge is the decisive moment of the fight. Mother hits hard, but nothing you shouldn't be able to heal through (use a defensive CD if you need to, but try to reserve one for the split - those witches hit hard). *Occasionally, two explosive adds will enter the arena. They'll home in on someone, snare them, run over, and explode for 3300-3600 damage in a too-fast-to-dodge AOE. You can either hinder them and kill them at range (preferred, I believe) or use escape skills to dodge the explosions. It's probably easier to just kill them; a ranged hinder would be very beneficial here *Cleanses are spectacular in this fight, as Mother frequently stacks a large bleed on the tank (and by "frequently" I mean "every few seconds, 2-5 stacks at a time"). Those bleeds, combined with the snares, leaves you no shortage of options to cleanse. Primordial Dweller *This guy sucks. *Dweller's new ability is called something along the lines of "Synapse Spasm". It's cast on the tank (or anyone in the party if no one is in melee range) and deals a fairly large amount of damage. It also deals damage to anyone near the tank, so the tank needs to stay in a corner of the platform while engaging the boss to avoid accidental "cleaves". It is interruptable. *Dweller will try to cast Tide Wall once per Phase 1. If the DPS are ok with purging it, the tank can use his stun(s) for Synapse Spasm. If they're not doing so hot on the purges, kick Tide Wall and eat the Spasms. Feel free to rotate all defensive CDs per Phase 1. *Similar to Mother, two explosive adds will occasionally enter the arena and attempt to kamikaze a party member for 3300-3600 damage + knockback. Flicker/Tactical Retreat/something is almost required for this fight. This is also an encounter where the party may wish to wear extra HP to survive the blasts. Ranged DPS can also hinder+nuke the adds. *There is no timer for Dweller. Take your time, don't rush. Mistakes are usually fatal here, so it's best to err on the side of "Don't Die." However, the healer does have a tough job as PD pumps out a surprising amoutn of damage, especially if the tank is eating the Spasms. *The tank needs to take special care not to eat the PBAOE (Psychic Death Zone or something). It only deals 3000-3500ish damage, but it has homerun-level knockback and wipes threat, usually resulting in a wipe. *Watch out for black water, it explodes like during Jarl and Varangian. There's a LOT more black water during Phase 2, so keep an eye out. *During phase 2, have the HEALER run into the cloud. Someone needs to be in melee range at all time, but the cloud deals a whopping 32-37 damage per second; it's totally trivial. About 30 little swarmling adds will enter the arena and immediately home in on the healer; due to the target limitations of all tanking abilities, the healer WILL be tanking these adds regardless of what you try to do about it. Embrace the fact and use it as a reliable AOE death zone for the adds; they only have about 1000 hp and hit for poop, so the healer should be able to heal-tank through the short period of time it takes to blow them all up. *Watch out for explosive adds during phase 2, they're more annoying here. *If there's no melee DPS in the party, the healer can hide from the explosive adds by standing in the opposite corner from the tank on the platform during Phase 1. Ranged will need to shoot the adds when they appear to draw their attention, then either hinder&kill or escape the explosion as needed. *This fight is 90% about failing to die from the explosive adds. Handling them should be the top priority of any planned strategy. Ur-Draug *Ur-Draug's melee cleaves and hits like a TRAIN. I think base damage of around 5000, maybe higher. Slow attack speed, though. The tank needs to be constantly rotating defensive CDs during Phase 1 to give the healer a Damn Prayer of keeping him alive. Debilitates need to be stacked ASAP (Blade Clearing The Path applications will NOT suffice). *Tanks need to spec for as much evasion and mitigation as they can get; I don't think you really even need a stun here (haven't gotten to final enrage, don't know if one is required there). *Ur-Draug's Cosmic Gaze, if it didn't in Elite, now includes a HUGE amount of knockback. The damage from it is actually pretty minor. Tank with your back to a pillar and DON'T interrupt the gaze when he casts it - it's actually giving your healer a chance to breathe. *DPS should bring a few purges and at least one (preferably two) AOE cleanses. The adds during Insanity Mode have a 50% evasion buff, which makes them survive long enough to really cause problems if it's not pulled off immediately. Ur-Draug supposedly also does an AOE snare when he submerges (or emeges?) to cast Extinction, making it much harder to get behind a pillar in time w/o that cleanse. I've heard particularly good things about the shotgun buff Cleanup. *Enrage mode supposedly involves a party-wide debuff of some sort, so be ready for it in case I heard that right. *This fight is great for party-wide DPS buffs (breaching shot, short fuse, deadly aim, etc) due to its length.